(Trinidad Guardian) White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has confirmed to the New York Times that US President Donald Trump spoke to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley on Sunday about “terrorism and other security challenges, including foreign fighters.”
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that American officials are worried about having a breeding ground for extremists so close to the United States. They fear that T&T fighters could return from the Middle East and attack US diplomatic personnel and oil installations in this country, or even take the three-and-a-half-hour flight to Miami.
The newspaper quoted the figure given by National Security Minister Edmund Dillon of 130 T&T nationals—men, women and children—who had made the trip to Syria. By comparison, it said, about 250 citizens of the United States, a country with 240 times the population, had joined the extremists or attempted to travel to Syria by late 2015, according to a House Homeland Security Committee report.
The article quotes former US Ambassador to T&T John Estrada as saying that per capita this country has the greatest number of foreign fighters from the Western Hemisphere who have joined the Islamic State.
“Trinidadians do very well with ISIL,” Estrada said. “They are high up in the ranks, they are very respected and they are English-speaking. ISIL have used them for propaganda to spread their message through the Caribbean.”
The report further stated that T&T has a history of Islamist extremism—a radical Muslim group was responsible for a failed coup in 1990 that lasted six days and in 2012 a Trinidadian man was sentenced to life in prison for his role in a plot to blow up JFK International Airport in New York. Muslims make up only about six per cent of T&T’s population and the combatants often come from the margins of society, some of them on the run from criminal charges.
The newspaper said those involved saw few opportunities in an oil-rich nation whose economy has declined with the price of petroleum. Some were gang members who either converted or were radicalised in prison, while others have been swayed by local imams who studied in the Middle East, according to Muslim leaders and US officials.
The young men found solace in radical Islamist websites and social media and in the call to jihad. The newspaper quoted Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi who said after the 1990 attempted coup, wearing Muslim garb took on a certain appeal.
“A lot of people who were not genuinely Muslim or otherwise took on the persona to carry on their thuggery,” he said.
The NY Times said much of the information about the identities of those who went abroad comes from American intelligence sources, although local imams and Islamic leaders all said they knew several people, including women, who had left. It quoted Imtiaz Mohammed, president of the Islamic Missionaries Guild, as saying: “I know whole families that went.”
The report referred to statements by Juan S Gonzalez, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, who said the bulk of Islamic State fighters from Latin America originated in T&T. The numbers underscore a risk of lone-wolf attacks in the region, he added.
“As the United States continues to corner ISIS and defeat them, a lot of these guys aren’t going to feel they have safe quarters,” Gonzalez said.
“Is the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States, prepared for these guys to return to their countries? This is a real vulnerability.”
He noted that people in the Caribbean enjoyed visa-free travel throughout the islands, which makes it fairly easy to travel to the Bahamas, and from there make a “short jump” to South Florida.
The NY Times said the United States, which encouraged T&T to tighten its laws, has hosted meetings with Muslim leaders at the Embassy in Port of Spain, and paid for several to attend anti-extremism workshops in the US.
Government last week introduced a series of amendments that would criminalise membership in the Islamic State and other extremist organisations. People who travelled to certain regions would be presumed to be doing so for terrorism, and the burden to prove otherwise would be on them.
The newspaper said the Islamic Missionaries Guild, criticised the proposed legislation, saying groups like theirs that make trips to the Middle East are often engaged in charity work and could be unfairly singled out.
“You can’t just go to a court and have a judge tell you that you are guilty with no evidence, just an assumption,” Mohammed said.
The newspaper also quoted a senior intelligence official in T&T who was not authorised to speak publicly but said he was worried that the proposed legislation would make people who would have left for Syria plan attacks at home instead.
The official is reported to have said that about 15 or 20 of the Islamic State recruits spent two weeks before their trips at a mosque in Rio Claro. There, they attended an orientation, the official said.
But the imam at the Rio Claro Mosque, Nazim Mohammed, denied running an Islamic State training programme and insisted that he operated an elementary school and a weekly food programme for the poor.
He, however, acknowledged that two of his children and five of his grandchildren were in Syria and that the adults were believed to be involved with the Islamic State. He insisted that his children did not notify him of their plans and shrugged off the group’s influence.
“Who is ISIS?” he said. “ISIS is just a few people.”
Mohammed added: “Killing and murdering is not Islamic. Our programme is to help people. You know how many people have come here for help?”
The NY Times also spoke with Umar Abdullah of the Islamic Front, who said he had been among those who encouraged the would-be fighters.
The report said despite having made thinly veiled threats to Americans in the past, which led a cruise ship on its way to T&T turning back, Abdullah has since denounced extremism and now says Muslims must work with the United States to “change the narrative.”
It would be stupid to try to attack the United States Embassy, he said.
